


Among the Wilde

by Rori_Teagan



Series: Bound Up in You [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blow Jobs, Explicit Sexual Content, First Kiss, First Time, Light BDSM, Loss of Virginity, M/M, Sharing a Bed, Virgin Sherlock
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-04
Updated: 2014-06-04
Packaged: 2018-02-03 08:45:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1738391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rori_Teagan/pseuds/Rori_Teagan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A young Sherlock Holmes wanders away from his family's campsite, deep in the Cambodian wilderness. A cub-less mama Sunbear saves his life. 30 years later John Watson saves the rest of him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Among the Wilde

**Author's Note:**

> check me out at amillien2one.wordpress.com/shjw2

_"My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together."_

_~Desmond Tutu_

 

If Sherlock had a penchant for quixotic prose he might say this: The bear saved his life and John Watson saved the rest of him.

But he doesn’t. So he won’t. Some things should be omitted for the sake of objective report. He stands by that. There’s nothing gained by sensationalizing things.

Still. It doesn’t make facts any less true.

***+++***

“The subject is a 34-year-old male, six foot two inches, 11.42 stone, identified as former missing child Sherlock Holmes. It is believed 30 years ago while on family vacation, four-year-old Sherlock wandered away from his family’s dwelling and was subsequently lost in the abundant foliage. Soon after he was adopted and cared for by a female Helarctos Malayanus – South East Asian Sun Bear. While Sherlock’s ability to process language and communicate had developed prior to his disappearance, and to a very high degree at least ten to twelve years advanced of his age, he has nevertheless gone thirty years without human contact therefore making the degree to which he has retained language impossible to predict. He was discovered three days ago foraging for food at an abandoned Cambodian campsite some thirty kilometers from the site of his original disappearance, in the company of an elderly female Sun Bear. Unfortunately, the Sun Bear expired during the extraction due to mishandling and severe advanced age.

Sherlock Holmes is in good physical health barring slight malnutrition. His restoration and reintroduction into human society will be carefully monitored and documented at the behest of his elder brother and guardian Mycroft Holmes. The overseeing of his care shall be provided by myself, Dr. John H. Watson, and a team of hand chosen experts in their respective fields. Dr. Mary Morstan, language and speech developmental therapist; Dr. Victor Trevor, animal behaviorist; Dr. Martha Hudson, neuro-psychotherapist; and finally Dr. Irene Adler, physical rehabilitation therapist.

Dr. John H. Watson.”

***+++***

DAY ONE

From the safety of the observation room, John watches the man circle incessantly around and around his room like a trapped animal. For once, the man is standing upright, pacing on two feet and not the more familiar hands and haunches slope he prefers.

They’re supposed to have their first session today but he hasn’t yet built up the courage to enter. He’s been a doctor for twenty years and Holmes is nothing like anything he’s seen before. This is _the_ find, the great epic wonder that make doctors’ careers. And yet, and yet. John sees a man. An amazing, miraculous man. And the reality is… if he can’t help who can?

Sherlock Holmes has been lost in the wild for 30 years and looks as if he has. The original team that first wrangled him in cleaned him up as well, cut the massive matted weight of unruly dark hair, shaved the surprisingly sparse beard, washed him head to toe with antibiotic soaps. Still, he’s refused all clothes, making his opinion on the matter aggressively known. Now he prowls around stark naked like a jungle cat, lean muscles shifting sinuously under nut brown skin. There’s no mistaking him for a civilized creature. No mistaking him for anything other than the wonder he is. The courage and strength of character it must’ve taken to survive for so long, child alone, and then to grow into this man, this beautiful creature.

It’s a bit of an understatement to say John is nervous about entering.

Ironic, when he’s made his career from bold actions and risk-taking. In fact, those two precedents are what captured Mycroft Holmes’ attention in the first place.

“Now’s not the time for self-doubt,” he mutters to himself. “Get a hold of yourself, John.”

He takes a deep breath, adjusts his coat, straightens his shoulders. And enters.

Sherlock comes to an abrupt stop immediately, his head snapping up at the intrusion. His beautiful face twists to a snarl and a frission of fear slides its way down John’s spine. Sherlock has already proven himself to be aggressive, with the strength of a bear that far belies his lean frame, John would be a fool not to be a little apprehensive.

John raises hands, out-stretched, palms up in the universal signal for the ‘look how harmless I am,’ he ducks his head submissively but never takes his eyes off of Sherlock. “There now,” he mutters low, nearly too soft for his own ears and yet Sherlock pulls back, drops down on all fours, fingers curled into claws.

“I’ve just come to say hullo, that’s all,” John soothes.

Sherlock retreats further into himself, coiled tight as a wound spring. John has no illusions that he won’t attack at the slightest provocation. So. He just won’t give him provocation.

John lowers himself to the floor slowly in a gentle mimicry. “I’ll stay here, you’ll stay there, and we’ll just have ourselves a little chat, yes?”

Sherlock watches, intent, blue – gray eyes staring through him soul-deep. But he doesn’t move and he doesn’t attack so there’s a start.

***+++***

DAY TWELVE

 

“He cleans up well, doesn’t he?”

John is not surprised in the least to find Dr. Adler still here after hours. Although technically they would have no need for her until next week, at an optimistic guess, the woman kept her own hours and could often be found in the observation room intently following Sherlock Holmes’ every move. Her eyes lit up with an unholy fascination as all six foot of him moved gracefully around the room on all fours in a way that seemed impossible for a man of such height. Or anyone with a spine, actually.

“A thing of beauty, isn’t he?”

John bites his lip on an enthusiastic agreement. Irene chuckles, glancing at his face, she doesn’t need verbal acquiescence when anyone with two eyes can read him clear as day.

“It’s as if the essence of a man was stripped bare of all social inhibitions and self-consciousness, boiled down to sinew and muscle and flesh and poured out into that creature in there, a man to show us all what we could only hope to aspire to be, natural, real, raw.” John’s embarrassingly a little breathless by the end of his impromptu soliloquy.

Irene’s chuckle melts down to a small smirking grin. “I didn’t know you were such a poet, Dr. Watson,” she teases.

“With the right motivation ordinary men can be moved to miracles, that’s what my father always said anyway.”

“Looks like you found yourself the right motivation.”

John sits quietly in thought. The next time he looks up Dr. Adler is gone.

 


End file.
